Fractions
by rrdt
Summary: These are what make a relationship. Fifty themes, fifty sentences, on Commander Shepard and Kaidan Alenko.


**Author's Notes:  
**This is actually best summarized as _a collection of run-on sentences and punctuation abuse attempting to illustrate the epic love between FemShep and Kaidan_, but that wasn't really a will-make-you-read-this summary so I scrapped it. This was harder to complete than I thought it would be, and I'm just relieved I actually finished this. Anyway, this was born out of the lack of FemShep x Kaidan in Mass Effect 2. Unfortunately in ME1, I got attached, my FemShep as well, to Kaidan's character...and then come ME2, and there was just Kaidan in pink and white, Horizon, and that email. Here's to hoping the now Staff Commander Alenko will be featured (heavily) in a DLC _and_ in Mass Effect 3. Because if not, I will do something tragic...like maybe sulk for a day or two.

Just to avoid confusion, because some of the sentences refer to these data: my FemShep is named Deanna, is a soldier, and has the Spacer/War Hero background. She is mostly Paragon.

This hasn't been beta read, so pardon for all the grammar and spelling errors that I may have missed during editing/upload. Happy reading.  
**  
Warnings:**  
Punctuation abuse (lots of this), cheese (lots of this too), some angst, a number of assumptions, can-be-counted-in-one-hand usage of swear words, a mention of the Earth/Mass Effect 3 announcement trailer  
**  
Credits/Disclaimer:**  
1 sentence challenge theme set (_Epsilon_) taken from 1 Sentence Challenge community in Livejournal (http : / / community. livejournal. com/1sentence)  
Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2, Shepard, Kaidan Alenko, related characters, places, and events belong to Bioware and Electronic Arts.

* * *

**Fractions**

**01. Motion  
**Kaidan found the way Shepard moved in battle, with lethal litheness and grace, compelling to watch - she was Death in motion.

**02. Cool**  
What drew her to him was his cool, steady demeanor which was so much of a contrast to her own - he was a calm ocean, she was a storm.

**03. Young**  
If they were young, having a relationship would have been excusable - they would have been too naive to believe it was wrong - but they were both mature, responsible adults, and that made it inexcusable to break the regs, because they can't chuck it up to hormones, or to being fifteen and reckless.

**04. Last**  
Shepard never planned on getting spaced that day nor on having her last words to Kaidan be an order, so she was glad that she had told him three other words just that morning.

**05. Wrong**  
Kaidan knew that falling in love with your commanding officer was wrong, yet it was the best mistake he'd ever made.

**06. Gentle**  
Shepard could never figure out how someone so formidable in the field be so...gentle-hearted when out of the armor, which made her even more determined to solve this puzzle that was her lieutenant.

**07. One**  
He wasn't the first man she had a relationship with, but he was the one man she ever truly loved.

**08. Thousand**  
The thousandth time he thought through what he wanted to say, to do, he finally decided to just do it - tomorrow they'd be at Ilos, tomorrow they might be dead, and he just wanted to tell her, show her, how much he had come to care for her.

**09. King**  
On their first game of Skyllian Five, he almost won if not for a damned king, and Shepard's uncanny ability to bluff her way out of anything.

**10. Learn**  
If there's one thing Shepard have learned from Kaidan, it's never to cut corners - and as she looked back at some of the choices she had to make in this battle, choices she had almost always considered what he would have thought of, she wondered if he'd be proud.

**11. Blur**  
As the beacon seared visions into her brain and pain unimaginable coursed through her veins, everything became a blur - the last thing she heard was a deep, male voice shouting her name, and she clung to that shred of reality until the darkness consumed her.

**12. Wait**  
There was someone else in her secluded hideaway of sand and surf, watching the waves gently crash into the shore - her breath caught as Kaidan turned towards her, and she realized that he'd been right here, waiting for her all this time.

**13. Change**  
_You've changed_, she'd said, and Kaidan couldn't keep the bitterness out of his voice as he shot back, "Of course I've changed, it's been two years since you _died_ and I was left to deal with the aftermath, what did you expect?"

**14. Command**  
Kaidan spent countless sleepless nights after the attack on the Normandy haunted by regret - if only he didn't heed Shepard's last command, she would have been there with him in the escape pod, there with him now, on his bed, in his arms, safe and alive.

**15. Hold**  
"Hold me.", she whispered, a plea rather than a command - he did so, and he never wanted to let go.

**16. Need**  
Shepard was too stubborn to admit needing anyone's help personally when it came to certain things - Kaidan knew this, so he pretended it was a coincidence whenever he was there when she needed someone when in fact, he is and will always be there for her.

**17. Vision**  
The vision from the beacon in Eden Prime persisted every night, and so Shepard found herself having difficulty sleeping, or avoiding sleep altogether - the only upside to this was that she got to spend more alone time with Alenko in the mess hall or in the infirmary, since he was the only other person awake at odd times of the day due to his migraines - _misery loves company_, as they said.

**18. Attention**  
Damn, but good luck to the councilors ever getting her attention now, Shepard thought as her gaze skimmed over Kaidan, dressed in his Alliance formals, who just arrived in the Presidium for the commemoration of The Battle of the Citadel - her mind's not just going to focus, not when he's beside her looking ridiculously good in that blue tailored uniform.

**19. Soul**  
Kaidan could see Shepard's soul through her eyes - like that proverbial saying, because no matter how much she tried to hide what she was feeling, it always shone through her expressive, vivid green eyes.

**20. Picture**  
His picture on her desk was more than a simple memento - it was something that made the captain's quarters home, her anchor in this sea of storms.

**21. Fool**  
Kaidan clicked the _Send_ button on his terminal, watched the animated envelop icon quietly, and hoped - he has started to accept that maybe Shepard was telling the truth about her death, and he has started to believe that they could make this work - _them_ - somehow, and if that made him a fool, then so be it.

**22. Mad**  
He had no idea why it made him so mad whenever Shepard pulled one of those spur-of-the-moment and almost always idiotic stunts she liked doing when their carefully planned assaults were blown to hell, until he realized he was being protective because he cared for her more than he should - _that_ had made him curse aloud.

**23. Child**  
Kaidan wasn't expecting to find someone in the mess hall so late when he passed by it on his way to the med bay to get some meds for his migraine - certainly not his commanding officer looking wistful, balled up on one of the chairs almost like a child.

**24. Now**  
_Live for the here and now_, she told him once - he couldn't do it completely, but he found he quite liked the times he let go of the past and the future to make the most out of the present.

**25. Shadow**  
Fate, and a massive, menacing, _familiar_ shadow looming over London brought them together again.

**26. Goodbye**  
Shepard wasn't good at saying _Goodbye_ so she always said _I should go_, and waited for a cue - Kaidan wasn't good at saying _Don't go_, so she never stayed for long.

**27. Hide**  
The day they were going to meet Ash's family in the Citadel, he found her hiding in a garden in the presidium, sitting on a bench, head on her hands - she'd been there for the past hour, and when he asked why, she looked up at him with sad green eyes as she simply said "She's dead Kaidan, and nothing I say to them will ever fix that."

**28. Fortune**  
Shepard was a woman of action, and as she walked towards the mess hall in determined strides, towards the man busy tinkering with a console, she thought of that saying - _fortune favors the bold_ - and hell if she was just going to sit around and wait for the lieutenant to make the first move (he probably won't, so she would).

**29. Safe**  
"Stay safe." Kaidan whispered as he kissed Shepard fiercely, passionately, onlookers be damned, knowing full well that once he let her go into the Normandy SR-2 from the docking platform in Arcturus Station, he won't be seeing her again until their planned rendezvous point - or perhaps never again, if the worst comes to worst - and he wanted to make the most out of the last few minutes they had together before heading out into war.

**30. Ghost**  
Every waking moment was filled with memories of her, and every night he'd dream of her only to wake up to the crushing reality that he's all alone - even after a year, she still haunted him like a ghost.

**31. Book**  
Kaidan was the bookish sort, quite literally - he collected books, ones that were traditionally printed and bounded - and Shepard found this hobby both nerdy and endearing.

**32. Eye(s)**  
She slumped by the lockers, eyes glazed from unshed tears and faraway thoughts - she was trying hard not to break from the pressure, and it was the first time Kaidan saw her so frail, so desperate, so...human.

**33. Never**  
That moment he'd held her, that moment he'd made her his, he knew there would never be any other woman for him - only her, and he'd never felt that utterly at peace and so overwhelmingly _whole_: she was what was missing in his life, and he knew then that he'll never again be complete without her.

**34. Sing**  
"I think I'm in love with Alenko." Shepard declared, quietly of course, to Ash, who was with her cleaning their guns by the cargo bay - Ash just rolled her eyes, because seriously, it was just Skipper and LT who were clueless about their own feelings, and when Shepard proceeded to say something along the lines of _this is fucking cheesy I know, but he makes my heart sing_ Ash let out a snort, because who knew The Goddamn Commander Shepard could be so full of mush that it was cute _and_ funny?

**35. Sudden**  
The development had been gradual, but the realization was sudden - Shepard had always brought Alenko along on missions because his skills tactically complement hers in battle, but it was more than that, and standing there in decontamination with him after another planet-side assignment, it finally hit her: she _love_ this man, and she wanted to be with him _always_.

**36. Stop**  
If only she could, Shepard would have long ago stopped time to spend an eternity with Kaidan just tangled up in sheets and in each other's arms - it would be an eternity spent contented, happy, and warm, and she didn't want it any other way.

**37. Time**  
Time - it was what they never had enough of, and so they made sure every fleeting second their duties and the universe allowed them to have with each other counted.

**38. Wash**  
The hot water from the shower hissed as it hit her skin, and Shepard closed her eyes and let it wash over her, wash the feel of him, the longing for him - Horizon had been a disaster in more ways than one, and she just felt so tired and so hollow.

**39. Torn**  
He was torn between the the need to just kiss her, taste her, feel her, and the need to scream - he loved her and he thought she did too...yet she left the Alliance, left _him_, to work for this terrorist organization whose shit they've cleaned up in the past.

**40. History**  
Their history was filled with and built on the trivial - stolen glances, wayward touches, awkward smiles...those few quiet moments where there was just him, and her, and nothing else mattered.

**41. Power**  
Kaidan was raw power in battle - the way he threw or lifted enemies with a single seemingly effortless movement never failed to make Shepard pause for breath.

**42. Bother**  
It must have been the tenth time she had walked in on him fixing that console, wanting to just talk to someone, that she had asked him if he ever found her a bother - his reply, short and to the point, made her smile: "Never."

**43. God**  
After Virmire, Shepard had asked him if he believed in God - he wasn't a religious man so he said so as much, and when he asked the same question back, she answered "Most days." with a bitter smile.

**44. Wall**  
Kaidan liked building walls, Shepard liked breaking them down.

**45. Naked**  
She had laid out all her cards on the table, broke all the rules - she'd never felt so naked in her entire life, so vulnerable and hopelessly in love.

**46. Drive**  
If there's one other thing Kaidan feared, aside from getting to Saren too late, it's death by falling off a cliff, care of Shepard's crazy Mako driving skills.

**47. Harm**  
"You're _not_ invincible, commander." Kaidan said thru gritted teeth, frustration clear, as he applied medigel to an ugly gash at the side of Shepard's head - he caught the minute flicker in her eyes and the movement of her lips and knew she was about to sass him back, so he didn't let her - "Yeah I know it's part of the job, getting in harm's way, but the next time you're ambushed by a Geth Prime on your own, look for cover or you know, yell for backup, that works too."

**48. Precious**  
Alenko knew some soldier types go gaga over guns, but he realized the commander's love for her assault rifle wasn't normal and the least bit healthy the moment he overheard her croon to it _my precious_ while cleaning it in the Normandy's makeshift armory.

**49. Hunger**  
The way Shepard had just licked her spoon clean of that Nutella spread she indulged in once in a while, and the little moan of satisfaction that followed after, made Kaidan hunger for something entirely different from the Normandy Mess Hall Mystery Meal he was trying to finish off - who knew eating could be so damn sexy?

**50. Believe**  
In the end, it was about faith - he believed in her as much as she believed in him, and that was enough.


End file.
